


sea salt

by 3311



Series: One shots - DBH rarepairs week [4]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Sailor/Mermaid AU, Unexpected Rescue prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 20:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20627411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3311/pseuds/3311
Summary: Sailor!Tina/Mermaid!ChloeFor the Unexpected Rescue prompt for dbh rarepairs week over tumblr





	sea salt

Inspired by the sea shanty [William Taylor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5SRlBEc5nc), but taking out everything that's straight (bill jones' is my favourite version ever because it all ends spectacularly, like good for her)

* * *

To say that nobody had wanted her to do this was an understatement; her father had told her that if she went and did such a thing he didn’t want her to shadow the step of his house ever again, while her mother and sister cried. Tina felt very sorry for them, especially for Amy. Her younger sister had been the perfect child to their parents, always did what she was told to, even when she was told to marry some buffoon only because it was a good match to push forward their Dad’s trading business.

Their Dad had gone to Tina first, being the eldest, but Tina had put her foot down on that, and her father had too much sense to push it, let’s his eldest daughter offend the head of the Wang family and ruin the professional and personal bonds he and his wife had been cultivating so carefully for years

“Anyhow” Mrs. Chen had told her husband “Amy is prettier, younger and a better cook, Enjie Wang really should be glad you are offering her hand to his son, Yifei looks like a diseased penguin”

Amy had married the diseased penguin, but who had helped her sister through her very frightful first pregnancy? Who had held her during her morning sickness, and gone to the shops no matter how late because she wanted something to make her feel better, it had been Tina.

Yifei, had done nothing, he never did anything around the house (not even watch after the children), just like their father; while Amy wasted away with pregnancy after pregnancy, and Tina did the chores (cooking, laundry, cleaning) none of it was good enough for their father and Amy’s husband however.

Tina had no intention of staying around, when Gavin had told her he was going to go work in the docks, with the hopes of being a sailor, she’d envied him so much. Why could he go and have adventures while she had to stay home? Where her parents expected her to marry some other selfish, ugly man Tina would have to have ugly children for and pick up after him just as if he were another child, one she’d never be able to get rid of until she grew old, tired and bitter and she outlived him out of spite.

She’d told Gavin she wanted to go with him, she could do anything he could do. He hadn’t laughed at her, as anyone else would have done, or screamed at her, as her father would do.

“You watch my back, I watch yours, Chen!” Gavin said with a smirk

She’d told her father she wanted to live with Gavin at the docks, because she was a truthful daughter if nothing else. Her parent’s first thought went to her virtue, which was never safer than when she was with Gavin, since Gavin didn’t look at women that way, and Tina didn’t ever notice men more than she was forced to; the fact that Gavin was the saving grace of the sex in her life seemed to point at some really great flaw within the entire human race.

“I’m not eloping with Gavin” Tina said “I want to work at the docks with him!”

That’s when her father had told her if she did such a thing she didn’t have to bother coming back, and so she hadn’t.

At first she pretended to be a man, Gavin cut her hair, got her clothes she fixed to fit to her short height by herself, William Tayloring it all around the place had been easy enough, until they were expected to live all on top of each other like the rats in the ship with the other seamen, still they had gone almost two years like that until she’d been discovered and taken to the Captain. Gavin barked so much about it he’d been taken with her, an accomplice, when he could have just kept quiet and wash his hand off her mess.

“You can’t sack us you dick!” Gavin was shouting as soon as they entered the Captain’s cabin “Chen and I do more for this piece of crap ship than 10 of those other useless pricks”

“Yeah!” Tina said, although she wasn’t in any way a jaw-me-down like Gavin was, they had to pull together right now “I have been doing everything Gavin has for years, why can’t women be sailors too?”

“Most seamen are superstitious men” One of the High Officials said to her, his pale blue eyes cold and steely “Women in ships are bad luck, they anger the sea gods, they say”

“The figurehead of the ship is a woman!” Tina argued

“A topless woman can appease the seas“ Master Allen said matter of factly

“I wonder who made that up!” Tina said, not that Tina didn’t enjoy looking at the beautiful, full figure and ample bosom of the figurehead, but her point still stood “And unless you think sea gods are as easily tricked as mortal men, they haven’t seem to mind me being here”

“Having the crew be… distracted would be dangerous in itself, on top of any superstitious hysteria she may cause” Master Allen was really Tina’s least favourite crew member

“Who would be distracted by Chen?” Gavin said in honest disbelief “Look at her! If there’s a girl less like that figurehead it’s her”

“Yeah!” Tina agreed

“Am I to understand there’s nothing between the two of you?” Captain Fowler inquired

“For fucks sake!”

“Over my dead body, disgusting!”

Gavin and Tina said looking at each other like they had not seen anything more repugnant in their lives

“And it’s not like I want anything from any of the rest of them either,” Tina said firmly “I have seen them in the nude and throwing up and pooping, the smell of the sleeping quarters is something else, They have showed me some pretty nasty stuff, rashes and boils in their, you know, ‘roosters’”

“Miss Chen!” Allen said in a tone that perfectly replicated that of Tina’s mother

“I feel sorry for all their wives, quite frankly,” Tina continued “and by the way, I think Kayes should really be seen by the doctor”

“Ugh, yeah, what the fuck’s that” Gavin added “eggs or what?”

“Right?” Tina said “I swear I saw them move”

One of the officials laughed, a warm, fatherly laugh “Jeffrey, I never took you for a superstitious man” he said with familiarity

“All sailors are superstitious, Hank”

“I say we take a shot at it,” Hank Anderson insisted “It’s true that Chen has been doing an excellent job, I would be really sorry to lose her, I have had my eye on both Chen and Reed for a while”

“What if the men get rowdy over her?” Allen said

“We throw them overboard” Anderson said with a shrug, “Just as we would if anyone tried to harm a fellow seaman, wouldn’t we, Fowler?”

“That’s sounds sensible,” Captain Fowler said, while Allen looked as if he had just drank something really sour “These two are your problem now, Anderson” the Captain said dismissing them with a gesture of his hand

“Out of here, then” Anderson said to them “You have work to do… I’ll send our good doctor to see Kayes too”

“And I better not hear you calling my ship a piece of crap again, Reed” Captain Fowler added “Or I’ll be throwing you overboard personally”

“Captain” Gavin said with a nod

“We’ll make the Chicken Feed proud, Captain Fowler!” Tina said as they left the Captain’s cabin

“How drunk was I exactly when I took on your suggestion for the ship’s name, Hank?” the Captain said sorrowfully 

Tina heard Lieutenant’s Anderson’s laugh and felt like she could conquer the world,

“We’ll make the Chicken Feed proud” Gavin mocked her “Always the teacher’s pet, Chen”

“Shut up, Reed” She said bumping against his side.

Her fellow seamen took it better than expected, some apparently with extreme relief. She slept just as usual with Gavin right by her side and if anyone held any sort of resentment or ill will towards her they kept it to themselves. Nothing changed really, except she felt lighter being able to go about her duties as herself, not having a secret to hide, she felt she really could serve in the ranks of the Chicken Feed until her final days.

That good will among her fellow mates lasted only one week, when their ship found herself near huge chunks of ice, they hadn’t been expecting that, nor the stormy clouds that seemed to close over them as if attracted to the ship, the men looked darkly at her then, as if all of it was somehow her fault.

“You okay, Chen” Miller asked

“Yes, of course!” Tina said confidently “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Chris was a gentleman and as such he now worried over her, but Tina didn’t hold it against him, he really had done so even when he thought she was a guy, always trying to help her just because she was smaller than the rest, ‘Don’t try to prove yourself just because some of them are assholes, alright?’ he’d told her with the tone of an older brother ‘the sea is dangerous and unforgiving, better alive than dead on some stupid dare’

Chris smiled at her with that same older brother warmth now “We’ll weather the storm and everyone will forget about silly superstitions, I for one wouldn’t have anyone else by my side than you and Reed, if things are going to get a bit ugly”

And they did get ugly, the storm hit them close to midnight, the waves the biggest and angriest Tina had seen in all her travels yet

“Chen! The sails!” Lieutenant Anderson shouted at her,

She nodded and went deftly up the mainmast. She was the lithest of the crew, she was always sent up the mast because she was the fastest and most agile, she could get it done in half the time of anyone else on the ship. She climbed just as usual, not expecting the wind to be this strong and cold. Somehow her numb hands slipped off the rope, she lost her footing, and the next thing she knew was that she was falling, she didn’t hear anything, only the air rush deafening her ears, something hit her and then she was in the water.

Her first instinct on hitting the cold icy sea was to breathe in, she was in pain, and the blow of the waves had hurt more than whatever part of the ship her body had collided with. She was drowning and she couldn’t tell up from down to get to the surface. Nice legacy this was going to be, she thought vaguely, she was shutting this line of work for women everywhere. Tina Chen would go down in the archives as one of the women that confirmed sailing with the fairer sex on board was a cursed endeavor.

Something tugged down at her leg, dragging her even deeper into the water, Tina turned wildly in the dark sea trying to see as the last bubbles of oxygen went out of her lungs; was it something that had gotten tangled with her leg when she fell? Was it a sea creature? But what she saw made no sense.

There was a girl, the loveliest girl Tina had ever seen, she’d never seen anyone that beautiful not even in paintings. The girl’s silky, blonde hair floated around her, her skin was almost translucent, and her blue eyes twinkled like stars made of the clearest aquamarine. It seemed like Tina’s brain really knew what she’d want to see last before everything went dark forever.

Their eyes locked for a moment, and the girl seemed to gasp in surprise, at least that was her expression, Tina couldn’t hear anything but the water in her ears. The girl let go of her leg swimming upwards to grab Tina by her shoulder instead. Only then did Tina notice the fish tail.

Tina’s head broke the surface of the wild sea; she coughed and gasped for air, breathing in half air and half sea water from the stormy waves, only managing to steady herself enough thanks to the girl… fish… mermaid creature.

“Tina!” She heard Gavin’s voice calling for her and was surprised at how distant and faint it was; the sea had already taken her hopelessly far away from the ship.

“What in the world are you doing, Chloe?” said the beautiful but angry voice of a redheaded woman breaking the surface near them “Just drown him already!”

“What’s all this fuss about” Another just as equally beautiful woman asked, wet blue hair cascading down her shoulders, and the next second yet another appeared behind her, wrapping her arms lovingly and lazily around the shoulders of the bluehaired one, Tina wondered if she was actually dead and in heaven, it felt suspiciously cold and painful, but other than that, being surrounded by beautiful women was very much her idea of otherworldly bliss, nevermind the fish tails

“I’m starving!” the newcomer said “why is our dinner still breathing?”

“That’s just what I was asking, Chloe” the redhead said reproachfully

“North, look at her,” Chloe said, “she’s not a man” she still held on to Tina with a grasp that hurt but Tina appreciated, it was only because of that she wasn’t being thrown around by the waves like a rag doll

“Don’t be ridiculous, men keep women away from the sea, at least living ones” North said, swimming closer to Tina, taking her face and turning it this way and that, not in any way gently. North whistled “Would you look at that, you really aren’t a man”

“Of course I’m not” Tina said, sounding much less firm than she did in her head; that with her teeth chattering because of the cold and the coughing because she kept breathing water in

“Did they hurt you?” Chloe said with concern “Did they throw you off on purpose?”

“That’s what happened to me and Kara” the third mermaid said with sympathy “We were pretending to be men to be at sea, and they found us out, hurt us, pushed us overboard, we drowned though”

“Is that what happened to me? Did I drown?” Tina asked incoherently, because she was honestly losing it a little

Chloe laughed “Don’t be silly! I got you, didn’t I!”

“Do you want to go back to the ship?” The bluehaired woman asked comfortingly

Tina nodded “Yes of course, my friends will be worried about me”

North Scoffed “We aren’t taking her back right now; it’s dangerous to be in the surface with this much ice and the storm. Chloe, you take her down to the caves.” She ordered “Echo, Ripple and I will see if we can actually get some dinner tonight”

“I hope so!” Echo said, “I was so excited when she fell, fish is getting boring you know”

“My friends are on that ship” Tina said, she’d heard the word ‘dinner’ quite clearly this time 

“Men are no friends of ours” North said savagely and disappeared with the other two

Tina moved as if she were going to try to swim after them, get to the ship to make sure they didn’t hurt any of her friends but Chloe hold on to her

“Let’s hope none of your friends fall overboard” Chloe said, “You should take a very deep breath now”

Tina obeyed the best she could, and Chloe pulled her back into the sea with incredible speed. Tina closed her eyes to protect them, she was running painfully out of air when she felt herself breaking the surface again, she spluttered and coughed and took big gasps of air before she could see around her.

She was inside a pond in a big cave, her coughing echoed in it, and moonlight beams broke in from somewhere above, while the sea wind made strange, moaning, sorrowful sounds going through what Tina supposed were small tunnels all around her, none big enough for a person she guessed, but big enough to give her air to breath. The moonlight told her they were far away from the storm.

“You’ll be safe here” Chloe said “You can get dry, change your clothes, we have a ton of those!” Chloe added excitedly

Tina got herself on the rock, when her eyes adjusted to the dim light she saw Chloe was absolutely right, there were piles of clothes, men clothes, seamen clothes, all crunchy with unwashed, dried up sea salt. Tina changed hurriedly, piling up coat upon coat to warm herself, trying not to think who they had belonged to, and how they had ended up here. There were some trinkets in the pockets as well, some pocket watches, one or two spyglasses, a flasks, she tried her luck with that last one, gingerly at first, and then in one or two big gulps to help her body warm up. 

Once Tina felt like she wasn’t one minute away from dying, she turned to look at the mermaid creature, half expecting her to be gone, like a fever dream, but she was still there, sitting on the rock, humming to herself and splashing her fish tail in the water. Tina was struck again by how breathtakingly beautiful she was, the mermaid turned her head and Tina was caught staring.

“Are you warm now?” Chloe asked “If I remember right, humans are much more delicate when it comes to that”

“I’m fine, thank you” Tina said blushing, coming closer to her, slowly, cautiously, the mermaid laughed at this

“You aren’t afraid of me, are you?!”

“I– I don’t know” Tina said honestly “I’d never thought I’d see anything like you, I mean I had in story books, but never thought– You are very beautiful” Tina spluttered 

“Thank you very much” Chloe said prettily, just as if she were a lady in a tearoom, “I think you are very lovely yourself, how come you are a sailor? Are men coming to their senses at last?” Chloe asked

Tina smiled ruefully “I’m afraid not, it’s just like your friend said, I was pretending to be a man and then was found out”

“Did they hurt you?” Chloe asked again

“Not at all, they were willing to give me a chance, and then I fell overboard”

“Don’t worry” Chloe said “I’ll give you back as soon as the storm passes”

“How about you?” Tina said, not even knowing what to ask

“I don’t really remember” Chloe said tilting her head pensively “I think… I think… someone shoot me in the head, right here” she said pressing one of her pretty fingers softly to the center of Tina’s forehead

“That’s awful” Tina said, her eyes wide

“Isn’t it” Chloe agreed “I remember it like an almost forgotten dream, I don’t remember why, I remember… being sad, feeling…. betrayed?” she said with a faint frown on her pretty face “but then I woke up, and I was this, and I was with my sisters and nothing was ugly or painful anymore,”

Tina felt her face grow hot with anger, feeling furious at whomever had hurt Chloe in the past. This girl that was so petite, lovely and sweet, but knowing the world maybe she had been hurt precisely because of that.

“Oh! That’s an ugly, angry expression, it doesn’t suit you” Chloe said, fluttering her fingers over Tina’s face. “What happened to me was a very, very long time ago,” Chloe continued “I may not look it but I’m about the oldest of them” Chloe said proudly “I think only Amanda is older than me, but she’s really ancient, very wise. The newer they are the more clearly they remember, that’s why North is so angry all the time”

“I’m sorry– I wish I had been there to rescue you, just like you rescued me” Tina said lamely, feeling sick

“Thank you” Chloe said, leaning her head against Tina’s shoulder “You are the first ever to say something like that to me”

Chloe asked her to tell her stories about the things she’d seen and Tina complied, she didn’t know when she had fallen asleep, but when she woke up she was still in the cave, lying near the water, with Chloe cuddled up to her, only the very end of her fish tail still touching the water. Tina looked at her sleeping face, all cream and roses, Chloe opened her eyes then, smiled, and Tina leaned down to give her a light kiss. Chloe pulled her closer.

“I wish I could stay” Tina said once they broke apart. She felt almost as breathless as she had in the sea, but in a much more delicious and lovely way.

“Then my efforts saving you would be completely wasted” Chloe said, splashing water with her tail “And I will not have that, no m’am! A female sailor is too valuable for me to selfishly keep all to myself, no matter how much I’d like to”

Tina smiled, cupping Chloe’s face with her hand, when Echo broke the surface of the pond

“Oops!” She said playfully “Am I interrupting?”

“Certainly, you are!” Chloe said in the same playful tone splashing water to her

“Sorry, it was that or risking North’s wrath” Echo said “She says we can take you to your ship now, the storm is over” she disappeared under the water as suddenly as she had arrived

Tina didn’t want to say goodbye to Chloe, but she also knew she couldn’t stay. She got into the cold water gasping, Chloe threw her arms around her neck

“You know what the best part of being a sailor is?” Chloe asked with a lovely smile

“What?” Tina said bumping her nose against hers

“I’ll tell you later” Chloe replied playfully “Ready?”

Tina nodded taking her deep breath

Chloe swam slower, letting Tina look around the depths of the now calm sea, they took a few breaks for Tina to breath, but only a few. The sea may be calmer but it was just as cold, soon enough there was the ship right above them; Chloe cupped Tina’s face with both her hands and gave her the sweetest kiss, salt and bubbles, before letting Tina float to the surface as she herself sank deeper into the water.

“Hey!” Tina called out breathlessly once she was in the surface “Hey!!”

“By old Nick and all his ungodly demons,” Kayes shouted “It’s Chen!”

“Someone fetch Reed and Lieutenant Anderson!!” Chris was shouting as he and Kayes threw her a rope

She climbed it easily, and before she knew it she was being crushed in Gavin’s bear hug

“Fuck you, Chen” Gavin said

“Where were you? Did you hold on to the ship?” Chris asked with awed curiosity

“Impossible, I would have fucking seen her” Gavin rebuked him, they had had to restrain him for him not to jump into the water 

“A lady doesn’t kiss at tell, Miller” She said with a wide smile, as Anderson put a coat over her shoulders

“Let’s warm you up, Chen” Anderson said leading her away from all the other awed seamen

“You have to tell me” Gavin said “I saw some shit that night you won’t believe, I thought I was fucking losing it!”

“Mermaids?” Tina whispered to him and chuckled at the look on his face.

“Your clothes are looking very particular, son” Old Collins said, he’d kept on calling her son even after her secret had been revealed “Looks like something my grandfather used to wear”

Nobody on the Chicken Feed ever dared question Tina’s right to belong on board again, she had swam her way back from the very jaws of the unruly, freezing waves, you didn’t mess around with someone so in cahoots with the strangeness of the sea.

“What’s the best thing about being a sailor? –”

Tina asked Chloe, many, many, many years later. After Tina had been the Master of Captain Reed’s Ship for decades, after her hair had become the color of sea foam instead of its original coal; when her routine disappearances from the ship were starting to become the stuff of legends, never confirmed but much believed – “In the middle of the sea, puff! She wouldn’t be anywhere” They’d say for as long as anyone who met her lived “by my word Master Chen was a sea witch!”–

“ – You never told me”

“Why, silly!” Her lovely mermaid wife laughed “They marry the sea!”

* * *

Notes: Also on the [blue hell](https://getoutofthewater.tumblr.com/post/187682529578/dbhrarepairs-friday-day-5-unexpected-rescue) =w=


End file.
